The Devil Wears Ralph Lauren

Usually when I post things in the Customer Disservice category, they are describing a situation where I or someone I know was mistreated by a salesperson. In this case, however, the salespeople were being more than kind and helpful, and the customer was incredibly bitchy.

I was at the Ralph Lauren store on the Upper East Side returning an item when a lady walked up to the person who was ringing up my return and interrupted, demanding to know where a certain jacket was. The clerk directed her to another room, where she, unable to find the jacket, found another salesperson. They found the jacket, the customer complaining that “they sent me to the other room first, so obviously they don’t know what the hell they’re doing”. She set her two shopping bags, purse, and raincoat down (also, raincoat? it was clear and warm out today) and tried on the jacket. She decided to take it, then turned to the salesperson and hissed, “What are you doing? Why would you just let my things lie here like this?” Apparently, she’d wanted the salesperson to pick up all of her items after she’d set them down. To her credit, the stunned saleswoman said, “I didn’t want to disturb your things, and you could’ve certainly handed them to me if you’d wanted me to hold them.” The customer decided to purchase the jacket, but had someone else ring her up, and loudly complained the whole time about how bad “that girl” was and how she “couldn’t believe” that the staff expected her to try on a jacket “over a sweater and a raincoat”. She was mostly pissed that they didn’t pick up after her when she set her crap on the floor, as if that’s a fucking part of their job.

The sense of entitlement wafting off her was almost palpable. I hate to see people treat salespeople that way. I credit the professionalism of the sales staff in dealing with her, because if I were one of them I’d probably have told her where she could shove her raincoat.

Have you seen customers treating salespeople poorly around the city? Tell me your tales of customers behaving badly!

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